Topological Photonics in Curved Space

Topological Photonics in Curved Space

When a magnetic field is applied to an electron, it begins to undergo cyclotron orbits due to the Lorentz force; this gives rise to exotic physics like the (quantum) Hall effect, the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations, and more. Photons are electrically neutral, so they do not naturally exhibit these fascinating phenomena used to characterized solid state materials. In the process of developing techniques to induce photons to behave as though they live in a magnetic field, we discovered that we could make them behave as though they are near a singularity of spatial curvature, akin to a black hole; this interplay of curvature and momentum-space topology is an extremely active area of research, and is uniquely accessible in our experiments.